Redemption
Redemption begins one month after the attack on the SSV Normandy. Liara T'Soni arrives at the Omega space station in search of Commander Shepard. At the Afterlife Club, Liara encounters a Drell named Feron, her contact with a lead on Shepard's whereabouts. Feron explains that Shepard is very likely dead, as Shepard's body, or what's left of it, is being stored in a stasis container. Liara insists on seeing Shepard's body for herself despite Feron's warnings. On their way there, Liara and Feron are ambushed by Blue Suns mercenaries, who overpower them. The leader of the Blue Suns squad, a krogan, tells Liara that the Shadow Broker wants to know why she traveled all the way to Omega to find Shepard. As the krogan threatens Liara, a sniper blows his head off. More sniper shots take out the rest of the Blue Suns, allowing Liara and Feron to escape, but not for long: they are cornered by two Cerberus operatives, led by Miranda Lawson. Miranda offers to help Liara find Shepard if she'll listen to a proposition from her boss, the Illusive Man. Brought to another part of Omega, Liara is ushered into a room where the Illusive Man appears via hologram. The Illusive Man explains that Cerberus is also looking for Shepard, but an enigmatic race of slavers called the Collectors are on the trail as well, and have hired the Shadow Broker to retrieve Shepard's corpse for their own unfathomable purposes. Initially suspicious of Cerberus' motives, Liara agrees to go along with the Illusive Man's plan, at least for Shepard's sake. Meanwhile, a Collector (Harbinger) angrily confronts the Shadow Broker about the delay in delivering Shepard. The Shadow Broker counters that no one else has Shepard's body, so the Collector has no choice but to tolerate the delay. He reassures the Collector that he will succeed, because he always does. Liara flashes back to the moment when the SSV Normandy was destroyed by unknown attackers, musing that the few who survived the attack could only wonder why it happened. Liara's reverie is interrupted by Miranda, who tells her that the Blue Suns have possession of Shepard's body somewhere on Omega and plan to hand it over to agents of the Shadow Broker. Miranda gives Liara the location of a Cerberus rendezvous point where she can bring Shepard's body once she has it, and tells Liara to follow Feron before departing. Liara then confronts Feron, having concluded that he works for the Shadow Broker and was responsible for leading her into the Blue Suns ambush earlier. Feron calms her down, saying that he had no idea about the ambush and had been hired by the Shadow Broker only to lead her away from Shepard. Feron tries to leave, but Liara angrily reminds him that she paid him. Finding Shepard is her chance for redemption, and could be Feron's chance too. Feron brings Liara back to the Afterlife Club to ask Aria T'Loak for a lead. Aria confirms that she knows where Shepard's body is, but is outraged when Liara tells her that the Collectors are involved. Before ending the meeting, Aria tells them to look in the mining processing plant in Omega's lower levels. There, Liara and Feron watch from a distance as the Blue Suns receive the Shadow Broker's representative. Feron's confidence dissolves when the representative turns out to be Tazzik, a salarian of imposing stature and the Broker's personal enforcer. As Tazzik pays off the Blue Suns, Feron attempts to use a nearby turret to disable Tazzik's ship. He misses and destroys a stack of crates, alerting Tazzik as Liara attacks the Blue Suns with biotics. Tazzik flees Omega, Shepard's body having been moved aboard his ship. Liara once again accuses Feron of purposely holding her back, but gives him one last chance when he says that they can still follow and catch Tazzik using Feron's own ship. Miranda tracks Tazzik from a Cerberus ship as he approaches the Omega 2 Relay. The Illusive Man tells her to stand down; Cerberus already knows where Tazzik is going, and they still need to learn why the Collectors want Shepard. On Feron's ship, Feron informs Liara that the Shadow Broker only has one base on the other side of the mass relay, in the Faryar system on the planet Alingon. Upon arriving in-system, Feron's ship is attacked by the Shadow Broker's sentries. As Feron's ship isn't armed, he flies through a nearby mined-out asteroid to evade the sentries, which crash one by one. On Alingon's surface, Feron and Liara make their way to the Shadow Broker's base. Because of Alingon's strong electromagnetic field, only the most sophisticated communications technology is functional; the Shadow Broker is the only one with such technology, which forces his agents to come personally to Alingon to confer with him and make any calls on his behalf only while offworld. Feron charms his way past the base's turian guards, convincing them Liara is a prisoner. Upon spotting a Collector on its way to meet Tazzik's ship, Liara wants to find Shepard immediately. Feron persuades her to wait so they can find out why the Collectors want Shepard in the first place. Feron takes Liara to the Shadow Broker's inner sanctum, where all of his agents receive their orders. There, the obscured figure of the Shadow Broker reacts with surprise to Feron's arrival, and surmises he was right in sending the Blue Suns to ambush him and Liara. While Feron searches the Broker's databases, Liara argues with the Broker, asking how he could trust the Collectors. The obscured figure is revealed to be a decoy that the Shadow Broker communicates through to his staff on Alingon. The Broker smugly explains that the exchange with the Collectors is underway. Feron then tells Liara he has the information they need. Liara smashes the decoy and destroys the room's equipment. As they head out to stop the exchange, Feron tells Liara who he is really working for. Liara single-handedly defeats a squad of the Shadow Broker's guards. Feron catches up with her, but Liara shrugs him off, angry that he lied and has been a triple agent all along: his employer is Cerberus. He explains that he started out working for the Shadow Broker running small errands. Cerberus had been trying to recruit him repeatedly to gain a foothold in the Broker's operation. Feron only gave in to Cerberus when he learned that the Broker was working with the Collectors, and that the Collectors were interested in Commander Shepard's corpse. The Broker had become suspicious however, and was cutting Feron out of work. To get back in, Feron volunteered to steer Liara away from finding Shepard so he could retrieve Shepard himself. Feron also let Tazzik escape Omega so he had an excuse to return to Alingon and grab as much information about the Shadow Broker's dealings as he could. At the Alingon base's hangar, Liara and Feron watch as the Collector they saw earlier examines Shepard's body. Tazzik is ready to hand it over as soon as the Broker receives the promised payment. Feron boldly interrupts the scene, telling Tazzik that the Broker is unsatisfied with the current deal and wants all of the Collectors' payment now, before the body is exchanged. Tazzik believes him, and orders the body moved back into his ship's hold. Elsewhere, the Collector fumes to the Shadow Broker about this "betrayal". The Broker explains that Feron does not speak for him and is a traitor, but he can't communicate with Tazzik. Back in the hangar, the Collector alerts Tazzik, who pulls a gun on Feron. Liara hears Feron's signal and attacks the other guards and the Collector while Feron holds off Tazzik. Liara escapes on Tazzik's ship, but is forced to leave Feron behind. Sometime later at the Lazerus Research Facility, Miranda and Liara watch as Cerberus doctors work on Commander Shepard's body. Liara suggests that bringing Shepard back may not be the right thing to do. Miranda expresses doubts that Shepard can be revived because the body was in worse condition than expected and the stasis container was of little help, but says the Illusive Man is more optimistic and willing to devote a considerable amount of resources toward the project. Liara leaves, realizing she has another friend to help now, and another enemy. Category:Mass Effect Category:Comic Category:Science Fiction